A diet rich in soy could help women fighting lung cancer live longer, according to a new study in China.

Researchers found women who ate a high-soy diet before they were diagnosed were 20 percent more likely to be alive a year later than those who didn't.

Dr. Gong Yang, the study's lead author at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tn., said it's too soon to make recommendations.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to suggest this association," Fox News quoted Dr. Yang. "Although this finding is promising, it would be premature to make any recommendation based on the findings of a single study."

Researchers say only 15 percent of women in the United States who develop lung cancer are still alive five years after their diagnosis, making any increased survival meaningful.

A similar study published last year by the same group reported that women who ate lots of soy were less likely to develop lung cancer in the first place.

"Based on that study, we hypothesized [that] people with a history of eating a lot of soy food -- if they're diagnosed with lung cancer, their lung cancer would be less aggressive," Yang said.